SUMMARY:

In this article Igor Alekseev addresses fundamentalism as a way of reinterpreting Islamic history. Alekseev begins by questioning the terms of the discussion, such as “fundamentalism,” “extremism,” and “radicalism,” and notes that these terms have become loaded with meanings that have little to do with Islam.
Drawing on M. Kemper’s work, Alekseev introduces the concept of “Islamic discourse,” which includes a discussion of the relevance of Islamic terms and concepts to the situation of a given Muslim author, as well as the degree to which contemporary conditions correspond to some ideal vision of Islam. For Alekseev, Islamic fundamentalism is the most extreme case of such a discourse. Noting that return to the source of tradition has been prominent in the dynamics of Islamic cultures as a means to overcome crises, Alekseev discusses concepts of return to the source of tradition in Sunni Islam (salafiyya) and in the Shi’ia tradition (usuli). Alekseev argues that these concepts have innovative and reformist rather than retrograde connotations for Islamic scholars. Thus, one of the basic ideas of Islamic fundamentalism, as opposed to a Western construct of it, is the notion of “correcting” the social and political ways of Islamic societies through innovation. The latter is achieved by extracting guiding principles from the sources of tradition.
Alekseev maintains that this general conception of innovation undergoes minor yet crucial changes in the hands of today’s fundamentalists, who demand restoration of early Islamic social institutions according to a selective vision of the shari‘a. This selectivity demands a return to “pure faith” and attempts to monopolize the truth.
Alekseev explores historical precedents of radical innovation in Islam, focusing on Wahhabism and its reception and impact on Islamic movements in the twentieth century. For Alekseev, the Wahhabi logic of intolerance represents an extreme case of a universal Islamic discourse of “gathering the broken ummah.” Alekseev then explores the role of Jemal ad-Din al-Afghani in the modernization of Islamic discourse and the articulation of a concept of Islamic unity cast in distinctly nationalist rhetoric. According to the author, terms used to describe “nation” (millet in Turkic languages and ummah arabiyya in Arabic) did not allow for the separation of ethnic and confessional unity. The same line of development merging nationalism and Islam was visible in the doctrine of the “Muslim Brotherhood,” whose organization emerged in Egypt in the 1920s. Despite the emergence of “progressive” and “socialist” Islam in the 1970s, radical Islamic movements gained prominence and often were seen as a counterweight to Soviet/Communist influence.
Alekseev concludes that the relative success of various Islamic radical movements can be explained in terms of their manipulation and use of the Islamic discourse of innovation. At the same time, the inability to write Western notions of progress and modernization into Islamic discourses intensifies the appeal of fundamentalism in the face of failed attempts to consolidate “the broken ummah.”